Embodying attentional states: The role of posture in task performance

Joseph Chisholm, University of British Columbia

Evan Risko, University of British Columbia

Alan Kingstone, University of British Columbia

Abstract

When participating in either an engaging or unengaging task,
individuals appear to adopt consistent postures that may reflect a focused or
unfocused attentional state. Posture is known to communicate certain affective
states; however, it is of interest whether posture may elicit an attentional
state that can influence performance on a task. To address this question,
participants were first instructed to sit focused or unfocused while conducting a
word recall and visual search task. Results showed a benefit of being in a
focused posture in the visual search task as well as consistent postures adopted
within groups. However, when participants were given instructions on how to sit,
without explicit mention of focused or unfocused postures, no performance
differences were observed. These results suggest that posture alone may not be
enough to elicit particular attentional states, at least not in the tasks we
used. Implications and future directions will be discussed.